Here's a thought: Bigger isn’t always better

That didn’t take long, did it?

Just days after the ink was dry on the eye-watering megamerger deal between Interpublic and Omnicom, it has emerged that the new behemoth—which probably won’t be called Intercom—will be announcing a $750 million annual program of what they interestingly describe as ‘cost synergies.'

It's a great word, synergies. It’s dynamic, thrusting, go-getting. It’s so much better than calling it what it is. Which in this case, is cost-cutting, asset-selling and worldwide job losses.

But we’re not here to pick fault with their choice of words. We have bigger fish to fry right now.

Because at this very moment, what we’re witnessing are the final stages of our industry’s transition from a world of strong, distinctive creative independents, run by the larger-than-life personalities whose names were over the door, to a world of interchangeable international conglomerates, funded by grey-suited investors.

So we'd like to pose a question: What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

From where we’re standing right now, it looks very much as if our industry is in the gravest danger of losing not just its own soul, but also the qualities that once gave it its unique value in the eyes of our audiences, in the career plans of the brightest and the best young talents, and in the balance sheets of our clients.

There’s always been a love-hate relationship between creative talent and big money. Ambitious mavericks have always been drawn to worlds of chaotic creativity where, if they shine, they can become rising stars of their generation. And of course, they’ve always loved the financial rewards that come with that success. The corporate money folk meanwhile, have different needs. They want predictability. They want order. They want happy clients. And they don’t like boats being rocked.

Sometimes you can see the conflict being played out in real time. In 2005, the legendary Australian creative agency George Patterson Partners ran what was to become a classic ad for Carlton Draught, mocking the pretensions of big-budget marketing. Set in a vast desert landscape, it featured a cast of hundreds, singing to the tune of Carmina Burana. The lyrics included the lines like, “It's a big ad! For Carlton Draught! It's just so freaking HUGE! It's a big ad! Expensive ad! This ad better sell some bloody beer!” They laughed. But even as the ad was running, the agency’s owners were finalising their deal to sell out to global mega-group WPP for $55 million (AU$90 million).

Nice work if you can get it.

What they thought they were getting back then, was what the IPG and Omnicon agencies probably think they’re getting now: The best of all worlds. More money, more offices, more resources, and yet at the same time—leaving aside any regrettable-but-necessary synergies—still being the same people with the same skills and talents, still capable of making the same award-winning creativity. What’s not to like?

In practice it rarely ends up that way. It changes you, it changes your business, and it changes the kind of work you produce. Those changes are rarely for the better.

The bigger and more geographically spread-out any organisation becomes, the more work is required to keep it running smoothly and consistently. You need to hire more administrative and managerial staff. More finance people. More HR people. More management teams. Step by step, whether you intend it or not, you oversee the rise of a distinct, powerful managerial class. This class cannot help but develop its own collective culture, its own interests, and its own agenda. And because they’re in charge now, what they say goes.

The word for it is managerialism. When it is unchecked, once-great creative organisations become captured by their own management teams. The bigger the organisation, and the more offices it owns, the greater management’s need to ensure consistency and control across the network, to deliver reliable returns for investors. This, inexorably, leads to standardisation and production-line processes.

In advertising and marketing, creativity is often the first casualty.

In a 2022 study by the World Federation of Advertisers, 82% of marketers agreed that creativity was marketing’s superpower. Yet in the same survey, 72% of those same marketers no longer saw creativity as ‘business critical.’ Consider this: Creativity was once our industry’s biggest asset. Our only asset. But today’s corporate-led agency networks have collectively failed to make a persuasive case to client c-suites for why it matters today, and how it delivers commercial return.

The result is mediocre, formulaic work calculated offend no one, surprise no one and thrill no one. It is little wonder that the status, influence and perceived value of advertising amongst the public have gone into freefall. Or, as the New York Times recently put it, people increasingly hate ads. Today, fully 31.5% of all internet users have gone out of their way out of their way to install ad blockers to avoid having to see any ads at all.

The talent meanwhile, are voting with their feet. Smart, ambitious young people are turning instead to tech startups and AI developers as the places where they can make their mark.

Of course, it’s easy to criticise the way things are now, and to look back to the way things were as some kind of golden age. That’s not the case. But even if it were, we’d still faced with the problem of what to do about the present.

To the new Omnicom-IPG mega-group, we'd say this: It doesn’t have to be this way.

Gaining the benefits of size and scale shouldn’t require descending into a blandness that further eats away at the value of our industry in the hearts and minds of the public and our clients. There has to be a way to grow without losing the hotshop spirit and maverick creativity that made us great in the first place. But it needs a new approach, and that new approach will require much effort and constant vigilance.

By all means set out to gain the world.

But take very great care not to lose your soul in the process.

Warwick Cairns is a partner and Gurdeep Puri, founding partner at The Effectiveness Partnership.